Mint Mobile is turning 10, and Ryan Reynolds has brought a guest who knows a thing or two about lists. The Mint Mobile Make a List commercial, posted on Reynolds’ verified YouTube channel on October 8, 2026 after a sneak peek on TODAY the day before, pairs him with Julia Stiles to count off “10 things to hate about big wireless.” It is a wink at 10 Things I Hate About You, the 1999 teen comedy that made Stiles a star, and it fronts Mint’s anniversary offer: six months of any plan, Unlimited included, for $10 a month for new customers.
Ten years, ten things, ten dollars. On paper it is a neat piece of numerical rhyming. On screen it is a 30-second spot that mostly proves how efficient the Mint formula has become – and how little it now needs to try.
WHAT HAPPENS ON SCREEN
Reynolds stands in front of a soft mint-green backdrop with the Mint Mobile logo glowing behind him, in a red-checked shirt and his usual deadpan register. There are so many things to hate about big wireless, he says, but since it is Mint’s 10th anniversary, they decided to list just ten, with some help. Cut to a two-shot: Stiles walks in and says “Hi, Ryan.” He cuts her off: “No time for pleasantries, Julia. It’s a 30 second ad.”
A title card reading “10 Things to Hate About Big Wireless” kicks off the countdown, with the two trading items as bold numbered supers pop up beside them: complicated bills, overpriced plans, “evil contracts,” being forced to buy a new phone. Reynolds then lumps “five through ten” together as price hikes, and Stiles answers with a disgusted “Gross!” A green “Our Best Deal Ever” card leads into the offer – Unlimited premium wireless for $10 a month – over a block of fine print. Back in the studio, Stiles says she doesn’t hate that at all, Reynolds agrees and asks if they should dance. She says no. End card: mintmobile.com.
CREDITS
Brand: Mint Mobile, owned by T-Mobile US. Film: “Ryan Reynolds & Julia Stiles Make a List | Mint Mobile,” 0:30, on Ryan Reynolds’ verified YouTube channel. Talent: Ryan Reynolds and Julia Stiles. Quoted in the launch release: Scott Venuti, GM of Mint Mobile. The spot sits within Mint’s wider “10 Years of Outfoxing the System” anniversary campaign. Not credited in any source we found: the agency or in-house studio, director, production company, cinematographer, editor, music and media agency. Some aggregator sites claim Reynolds directed it, but we could not confirm that in an official or trade source, so we are not listing it.
THE EXECUTION
This is the Mint house style at its most stripped down. A seamless colored backdrop, a celebrity, a self-aware joke about the ad itself, a big price and out in half a minute. The format has always been the point: Mint built its brand on looking cheap on purpose, a visual argument that a carrier without fancy stores and stadium deals can afford to charge less.
The best line is the one that admits the constraint. “No time for pleasantries, it’s a 30 second ad” is classic Reynolds, puncturing the convention of the warm celebrity greeting and, in the same breath, explaining why the list will be rushed. That pays off when “five through ten” collapse into a single item. It is a genuinely funny bit of compression, and it smuggles in Mint’s sharpest message, that big carriers keep raising prices, as the punchline rather than the pitch.
WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
What works: the anniversary math is tidy and memorable, and casting Stiles gives the list a reason to exist. Reynolds remains one of the most reliable comic pitchmen in advertising, and the pacing is tight. The offer is unmissable, the brand is on screen in almost every frame, and the closing “Should we dance?” “No.” exchange lands as a dry little button.
What doesn’t: the 10 Things I Hate About You reference lives almost entirely in the title card and the press materials. The launch release promises fans of “fairly specific late-’90s cinema” will be “appropriately whelmed,” but there is no recreation of the film’s famous poem scene, no classroom, no callback beyond the list itself. Stiles is reduced to reading supers and reacting, which wastes the one person on set with a real connection to the joke.
There is also some irony in a commercial that saves its biggest scorn for price hikes while selling an introductory deal. According to the release, the $10 rate is for new customers, paid upfront as $60 for a six-month plan. That is a strong price, but it is still a promotional hook, and the ad’s own fine print is doing a lot of work behind that giant “$10/MO.”
VERDICT
Make a List is competent, quick and occasionally very funny, a reminder that Reynolds can still make a 30-second price ad feel like a bit rather than a pitch. But for a 10th-anniversary moment with a genuine ’90s icon in the room, it plays it safe, treating Julia Stiles as a hashtag instead of a co-star. Rating: 3 out of 5.
